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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Comrades Unite!


Simmering rebellion characterises the atmosphere in our school.

Things are not, as you might say, hunky dory. Apart from that being the first time that I have ever consciously written those words, it is also a grotesquely inadequate way to express the lack of normality that is our normal modus vivendi in this institution.

The meeting of the primary teachers last night produced a series of outspoken denunciations of the way in which the school is being run and the treatment of teachers that were shocking unless you happened to work there. We are working in conditions that would have precipitated a walk out in a more union orientated place than the one in which we have the dubious pleasure in spending the hours of daylight.

The latest piece of downright disrespectful lunacy that has been instituted by the vengeful owner is that a door leading to the office from the main body of the school should be locked because inconsiderate teachers have the temerity to bother the office staff while they go about their duties. Which are apparently not associated with the running of a school which astonishingly has teachers attempting to educate the young!

The ludicrous systems set up by an administrator who knows nothing of the practicalities of education make it inevitable that the office staff have to be asked for such banal things as paper clips! Paper clips are an essential tool in the process which eventually results in photocopies being produced. The same photocopying which has not been done since last Friday; the designated (and thoroughly decent) member of the office staff having been absent and then diverted to other tasks. The result is that carefully worked out lesson plans have all crumbled into ad hoc nothingness.

But the locked door, which effectively imprisons us in our work, also cuts us off from the only toilet available for staff use! The spiteful, autocratic and vindictive action has succeeded in uniting the staff in a spasm of shocked outrage.

This morning, with emails flying like poisoned darts, the locked door magically opened and stayed open for most of the day. In a spirit of heady individuality I not only went through the forbidden door, but also entered the out of bounds administration area and spoke to people I should not have. Excitement indeed!

This cannot go on.

Except of course, it has gone on since September!

Now is the time for members of staff to let out a hollow laugh of incredulity when asked if they are considering staying on for next year. As far as I can see from the moment that staff arrived to take up their teaching posts, no effort whatsoever has been made by the owner to encourage loyalty and respect for her unsympathetic rule. There is every chance that, for the second year running, the entire primary staff will resign at the end of the year!

You would have thought that even the most thick-skinned proprietor would begin to question her approach when it is supported by the display of the backs of departing colleagues. But no! To paraphrase one of her alleged remarks when questioned about the ludicrous turnover of staff, “McDonalds has the same turnover of staff and they are OK.” Breathtaking inanity!

Meanwhile the reading of ‘The Shadow of the Wind’ continues apace. I particularly liked the following: “In my schoolboy reveries, we were always two fugitives riding on the spine of a book eager to escape into worlds of fiction and secondhand dreams.”

‘Riding the spine of a book’ seems like a phrase specifically designed to please me and a ready made title for a book itself!

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